Still Struggling for Equality

I am currently reading two books that mention gender inequality in leadership roles in the church: Confessions of a Beginning Theologian and Longing for More both touch on the subject.

I'm older than the writers of these two books so I am surprised by their stories.

Gender inequality was not something I experienced, either professionally or in my family.

My mother had been a trailblazer - the first to get a university education in her family. Most of her siblings didn't finish high school - they opted to start work at age 16 or 17. Those were different times...


In her early teaching years, she was sometimes the first woman teacher her one-room country school students had seen... As such, she was a role model to the girls.

By the time I entered the teaching profession 30 years later, many teachers were women. The only discrimination I remember facing was being paid less than a man in my first job. There were two teacher salary scales - one for men and one for women.

Both my parents valued women's education because they had both been raised by single mothers, for part of their lives. My mother's father died when she was two. After trying to manage the family farm by herself for several years, she eventually remarried.

My father also lost his father at a young age, a casualty of World War I. He was four years old when his mother was widowed, with two children to support. My parents told me again and again how important it was for me to be able to support myself.

With parents so progressive with regards to equality for women in education and work, I find it hard to comprehend why in some professions - construction, law, business, and the church, to name a few - women still struggle to have equal opportunities.